July 2025
by Shannon De Forest
One of my bucket list items is to visit the rest of the 50 states that I haven’t been to. Washington and Oregon were two of the states on that list that we were able to cross off thanks to Team Gleason.
We flew into Seattle and rested up for the adventures ahead on that first day.
Our second day in the Pacific Northwest was spent mostly with a roommate from college that I hadn’t seen for several years.
We went to Snoqualmie Falls where we enjoyed the view and a nice lunch, and then we made our way to the Chihuly Glass Garden exhibit with her and her daughter. Afterwards, our family of four took on the Seattle space needle.
We were in awe as we viewed Seattle from the top of the needle. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset while we ate dinner up there.
On our third day in Washington, we went on our Team Gleason Adventure.
We soared above the Puget Sound in a seaplane as we headed out to San Juan Island.
Our favorite part of this trip was the seaplane ride.
We loved being in the small plane, taking off from the water and watching our shadow gets smaller as we flew above the water and the islands of the Puget Sound.
My daughter even had the chance to ride in the copilot’s seat on our way back to Seattle.
The seaplane was difficult to get in and out of, but the people who worked for Kenmore air were so helpful and willing to do whatever it took to make this happen for me. I was so appreciative!
We were able to enjoy the island for a few hours before we took off on a whale watching adventure.
While out on our whale watch, we saw one humpback whale, plenty of birds, and some sea lions.
Upon pulling back into the San Juan Harbour, we boarded the sea plane to head back to the Seattle area.
We then took off south and made a stop in Olympia to visit with my husband’s friend.
From Olympia, we made our way down to Hood River, Oregon.
We took in the beautiful views of glacier coated Mount Hood while exploring the orchards there.
The next destination after taking the beauty of Hood River was Olympic National Park.
We made several stops on our drive through the park to take in the beauty.
We saw glistening waterfalls, gigantic trees, a rainforest, and views like no other of the Olympic range from the top of Hurricane Ridge.
The kids played on in the sand on Ruby Beach waded into the pool at the base of a waterfall, and climbed on trees.
We all fell in love with the beauty of the Pacific Northwest!
In addition to the sea plane ride, we just loved this time to slow down and taking in the beauty of nature as we spent time and made memories together.
While in Olympic National Park, I wasn’t able to access some of the hiking trails.
This prevented me from seeing more of the rainforest as well as the view from the top of hurricane Ridge.
I encouraged my family to go without me as I sat in my wheelchair and took in the surroundings around me.
While it was discouraging not to be able to fully access the trails, I appreciated this time to slow down and reflect.
We knew that we would encounter accessibility challenges as we tried to navigate the natural environment of a national park.
I was happy to see that many of them I was able to at least access partially.
We had to book a couple of rooms that weren’t handicap accessible. This meant that using the bathroom was hard for me because I have difficulty getting off of the toilet. To overcome this, I had to be creative and/or use the bathroom in the lobby.
On the morning of our flight home, I took a fall in the bathroom of the hotel.
My leg just gave out beneath me and I hurt my knee in the fall to the bathroom floor.
This was discouraging in a sad way to end our trip, but we didn’t let it ruin the wonderful memories that we had made.
Some of the accessible rooms weren’t as accessible as we thought they would be, whether it was the space in the room was lacking or the shower wasn’t accessible, I realized that there are many different definitions of accessible accommodations.
One part that stood out in addition to all of these amazing adventures was our experience on our JetBlue flight to Seattle. There had been a delay, and we took off three hours later than expected.
During that extra three hours in the airport, we got to know the gate agent who was so kind and kept us updated. I learned a bit about her life, and she learned about my ALS diagnosis. She made sure to make our flight to Seattle a memorable one by making us the “VIP family of the flight.”
We received first class treatment, extra treats, and a trip to the cockpit as a family. It was so nice of Jackie, our wonderful JetBlue gate agent, to make this a memorable flight for us.
It was so nice to know that I could still travel, explore, and continue to make these wonderful memories with my family!
